mirkwood

@NightSG Chuck Norris was born May 6, 1945.  Nazi Germany surrendered May 7, 1945...coincidence?
 
@unixknight  @NeuroTypical @MormonGator  cool feature.

@NightSG Chuck Norris was born May 6, 1945.  Nazi Germany surrendered May 7, 1945...coincidence?
 
@unixknight  @NeuroTypical @MormonGator  cool feature.

@NightSG Chuck Norris was born May 6, 1945.  Nazi Germany surrendered May 7, 1945...coincidence?
 
@unixknight  @NeuroTypical @MormonGator  cool feature.

I live out in the middle of nowhere, where there are no street lights.  Fortunately, I have my trusty flashlight.  

A fight avoided is a fight won.
Lehi

A good aikido instructor will focus on ways to get out of a fight, either controlling limbs or just taking your opponent off balance until he falls on his own, giving you time to run, access an effective weapon or direct him through a door and lock it.  Doing damage is secondary to that, up to the point where your opponent demonstrates that he will continue to attack as long as he's able to.  Then you break him as much as necessary.
Anybody in our class who thinks he's too good will be thoroughly humiliated by a late-60s Episcopal priest on disability and/or his daughter.

Well, there is your problem. 
LEGISLATION DOES NOT, CANNOT AND WILL NOT STOP THESE THINGS.
California, Chicago and many other places have laws up and down the pine tree, and yet, you have drawn the real conclusion.
"We" can never stop this.  The legislation does not stop it. 
Maybe, let me suggest to you that it could be stopped WITHOUT legislation beyond what is on the books today IF THE LAW WAS ENFORCED.
California has undertaken a serious program of releasing violent offenders from prison.  On a wholesale basis.  Guess who commits the crimes.
Why is it that people like you believe you have the solution to every ill in the world in your pocket?  You don't. 
Your very own William "Slick Willie" Clinton has stated that one of his greatest political errors was ... the ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN OF 1994!  Why!?  It lost him a great many political allies in the government AND ... IT HAD NO EFFECT ON CRIME.  He understands that.  Why can't you?
Your very own Gerald "Jerry, Governor Guru" Brown stated some years ago, after a casino extortion bombing "we don't need any more laws.  What we need to do is enforce the laws we have".
Of course you will never find that anywhere in the media.  Why not?  Because the agenda does not call for truth. 
In Orlando, the shooter UNDERWENT AND PASSED A BACKGROUND CHECK.  What's your brilliant idea?  Two background checks?
At some point in time you have to put your feet back on the ground and accept reality.
The gun didn't commit the crime.
dc
 
 

I see a big issue with the way this debate is framed.  People bandy about terms like "assault weapon" like that means something.  It's a tactic because a phrase like that sounds scary, so it's easy to talk about "reasonable limits" on "assault weapons" but there's one problem... That term means NOTHING.  It literally means nothing.  Nowhere in any military or gun enthusiast document is the term "assault weapon" defined.  It's a phrase that means a little something different to everybody, which is what makes it so valuable as a way of recruiting people to participate in the gun banning agenda...  Just say "Let's ban assault weapons!" and that sounds perfectly reasonable, because it's easy to stigmatize someone who supports private ownership of military weapons.  (Think of the children, people!!!)  It's kinda like when people start screaming for a ban on fully automatic weapons...   Tell you a secret, they're already banned unless you have an extremely expensive and difficult to obtain Federal collector's license.  It's all rhetoric.

In the '90s there was a Federal "assault weapons ban" which was just an arbitrary list of features on rifles that were restricted.  For instance, a rifle couldn't be sold with more of the following 2 features:  Pistol grip, flash suppressor, semi-automatic fire, ammo clip with a capacity greater than 5 rounds, etc.  Any rifle that had more than 2 of these features would be considered an "assault rifle" for the purpose of this law and was thus banned.  Also, imported rifles had to have a certain percentage of their parts made in the USA.

During the time of this law being in effect, I owned 2 rifles that would be considered "assault rifles" had they had but one more of those features:

An AR-15 .223 semi-automatic rifle with a 20" fluted barrel.  It had no flash suppressor, so it wasn't an "assault rifle."  It did have a pistol grip and 30 round magazines.  It was just as effective as it would be with a flash suppressor, but since it didn't have that little feature it was perfectly legal.

I also had a Maadi AKMR (civilian version of the AK-47) imported from Egypt.  It had a single stock, no pistol grip, fired 7.62mm ammo and was semi-auto.  It wasn't an "assault rifle" because it didn't have a pistol grip, even  though there was an opening in the single piece stock so that you still held it exactly as you would if it had a pistol grip.  I also bought a couple of 30 round magazines, made in the Czeck Republic, so technically every time I snapped one of those clips on, it became an "assault rifle" and thus illegal, even though it was exactly the same as if I'd bought U.S. made clips of the same capacity and performance.

These laws were utterly arbitrary and made to make gun control enthusiasts happy.  They expired in the early 2000s and the difference in the homicide rate in the U.S. changed not a whit for the law being in place.

Let's not get bogged down on hypertechnical definitions to prove whether guns are designed kill or not.  The question we should be asking is whether or not it's reasonable to think that restricting peoples' access to them is an effective way of making society safer.
The argument that less guns = less crime (or even that less <insert type of gun> = less crime) is an emotional argument based mostly on wishful thinking and Hollywood.  If yuo look at the actual data (like the numbers I presented above) you'll see the reality, and that's a little different from the emotional assumptions.

There is no such thing as gun violence.  It's amazing that you would even use the term "common sense".
Apparently you know nothing about guns, and have never shot or perhaps even touched one, yet all of a sudden you are an expert.  It's more than your lack of knowledge of God that you have here.
What you saw was people violence.  Religious fanatic violence.  Terrorist violence.  Islamic violence. 
No gun ever did any violence.   UNLESS someone was in control of it and used it for their purposes.
It's a fools errand to look at the instrument used, rather than who and why violence was done.
It's like calling a drunk driver (dui) hit and run killer ... car violence.  Would you call that car violence?  No?  Well then you see how idiotic it is to call this ... gun violence. 
Would you call a stabbing knife violence?  No? 
The tail doesn't wag the dog.  The gun doesn't do anything.
And the NRA follows it's members, not leads them.
dc

Yeah the media calls everything an AR-15.

ISIS has been calling for lone wolf attacks for quite a while now.  So, despite the idiot in the White House statement that there was no external direction from ISIS, that is very much open to debate. 
I would go with an ISIS related lone wolf terrorist attack to describe this event.  I base that opinion on my training and experience.

Shooter calls 911 repeatedly and claims allegiance with ISIS.  ISIS claims credit for the attack.
You go ahead and believe that liar in the White House.

Shooter calls 911 repeatedly and claims allegiance with ISIS.  ISIS claims credit for the attack.
You go ahead and believe that liar in the White House.

ISIS has been calling for lone wolf attacks for quite a while now.  So, despite the idiot in the White House statement that there was no external direction from ISIS, that is very much open to debate. 
I would go with an ISIS related lone wolf terrorist attack to describe this event.  I base that opinion on my training and experience.

ISIS has been calling for lone wolf attacks for quite a while now.  So, despite the idiot in the White House statement that there was no external direction from ISIS, that is very much open to debate. 
I would go with an ISIS related lone wolf terrorist attack to describe this event.  I base that opinion on my training and experience.

LeSellers - what do you say?  I keep hearing you asking how to tell good Muslims from bad Muslims.  Let's you and I go meet these folks at their next open house, and form an opinion about which they are.  
Will you meet me there?

So... the 911 calls the killer himself placed, claiming that it was about ISIS isn't proof?
One wonders what, exactly, it would take.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/06/12/this-is-the-miltary-style-equipment-used-to-respond-to-the-attack-in-Orlando/

ISIS has been calling for lone wolf attacks for quite a while now.  So, despite the idiot in the White House statement that there was no external direction from ISIS, that is very much open to debate. 
I would go with an ISIS related lone wolf terrorist attack to describe this event.  I base that opinion on my training and experience.

LeSellers, I would like to disagree with this characterization.  Further, I would like to issue a public challenge to you.  You live in the Denver area, right?
NT's public challenge to LeSellers:
Go with me to the next open house thrown by the Denver Islamic Society. 


 They have an open house about every month.  Let's go ask them if they're in the minority or majority of Islam.
 

I'm not an expert, but I've got fairly decent pipelines into people who are.  They've explained why they use language they use, and it makes sense to me.  And they all say it's an ISIS thing, so that's what I'm going with.  
Here's an LDS expert on Islam but not ISIS: 
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2016/06/on-orlando-today.html
Here's an expert on Islam and ISIS, currently happening live:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-shooting-live-watch-live-fbi-director-james-comey-1465835139-htmlstory.html
Here's an expert on Islam and ISIS from the private sector:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03x9wfy
I got the FBI director, a professor of Islamic Studies, and a president of a strategic forecasting organization all saying it's an ISIS thing.  Got a guy on the interwebs with an alligator-wearing-a-sweater avatar saying otherwise.  I love ya man, but gotta go with the people in the know here.  
 

Which is exactly what ISIS wants to have happen...  Top down leadership actions we stand a chance of begin detected and begin stopped....  Finding and stopping every disgruntled person out there who will act on it is a huge task given the huge amount of disgruntled person who might do something but isn't far enough gone to pull the trigger
 
 

So, yes indeed, it absolutely, beyond the shadow of a doubt, was "an ISIS thing".
Let's get things clear - militant Islamic jihadis try to do horrible things in two ways.  One way is by having those directly associated with the organization go and do stuff.  The other way is to inspire grassroots efforts from people with no official affiliation.  
So no, the guy never met with ISIS, wasn't a part of the organization.  Yes indeed, he was radicalized by ISIS, probably because he sought out and consumed the stuff they produce on the internet.  He acted as a grassroots terrorist for ISIS.   He was self-radicalized.  A "lone wolf".  
The Director of the FBI, James Comey, said that Omar Mateen spoke with 911 multiple times and told the operator he pledged loyalty to Islamic State.  
Folks, I know we want to believe otherwise.  We need to be rational here.